Solstice Day - The Cookies and de' Lights

It is Saturday December 21st, the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year (daylight wise). 

This morning we were busy with chores.  I made cookie dough, went grocery shopping and got in a two mile walk in the drizzle.

Tom went to Jill's house to work on the chimney. It kind of looks like he is the Grinch, stuffing the tree up, but really he is getting things ready for Santa.  He had to install a new cable to operate the damper, and then clean out some of the ashes and soot, collecting quite a bit on himself in the process.  I hear it was quite a comedy of errors, but he got the job done.  Now the yule log can be burnt.

This afternoon Jill and the kids arrived to bake cookies -  gingerbread and lemon sugar cookies. 

We had quite a production process going, and we finished up about 4:00, in time to get a snack before heading out for the Solstice part of the day, celebrating the returning of the light in the days ahead by going to see the lights.  In this case it was the Garden d' Lights at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. It was wet, a steady, fine rain, so I didn't take my big camera, and my little Canon tried it's best to focus in the dark with raindrops on the lens. 

 It was 6:00 when we finished with the garden lights and headed, the wrong way, to dinner.  Once we got turned around on the freeway and passed the traffic going to the mall, we landed at the Yankee Grill in Renton for a later than usual dinner.  We entertained ourselves with our phones and cameras while waiting for our food.

And now we are all settled back into our homes on this long, dark, wet night.  Sunday will be a slow day, and maybe a few seconds longer?